We have a good recipe for dough I really like the texture and it rises nicely (yeast dough) but it is lacking flavor. I have been considering adding some Italian style seasoning ( basil, oregano rosemary, ect.) to the dough maybe some garlic as well. Would this have much of an effect on the texture or effect the dough ability to rise?

Yak;A number of years ago all of the big box chains were offering an herb crust, then there was the "dirty" crust with the herbs tacked on to the outside of the dough. We have made herb dough by using the packaged Italian seasoning mix and just blending it into the dough and we have also made it by making our own herb blend consisting of dried basil, oregano, garlic, onion, sundried tomato, dried red and green pepper and a little ground white pepper. Depending upon how much onion and garlic that you use the dough might be a little softer than normal, but if you do any hand kneading you can just knead in a little additional flour to compensate for the softening effect of the onion/garlic. Aside form that, no real surprises.Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

Flavor is the combination of aroma and taste. An herb flavored crust is just the opposite of a saltless soup cracker. It is loaded with flavor from the herbs that are added even if the dough itself doesn't contain and salt, the herbs can still carry the flavor of the finished crust. This is how the salt substitute "Mrs. Dash" works, at least from a flavor stand point.Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

As a pizza professional, I suspect that c0mpl3x was being facetious or speaking with tongue in cheek. There are now quite a few pizzerias that offer flavored crusts, including Hungry Howie's and Jet's, to name a couple. Maybe those flavored crusts are uninspiring, although Hungry Howie's seems to the leader of the pack on flavored crusts: http://www.hungryhowies.com/.

We have a good recipe for dough I really like the texture and it rises nicely (yeast dough) but it is lacking flavor. I have been considering adding some Italian style seasoning ( basil, oregano rosemary, ect.) to the dough maybe some garlic as well. Would this have much of an effect on the texture or effect the dough ability to rise?

Thanks

I went totally off the norm with my dough for tonight and made it with Coors lite beer, dried basil & garlic granules so I'll see how it turns out tonight and post here.

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Thanks for the replies so far. Our crust does taste kind of bland. The pizza I think is very good, but when you are finished with the pizza part and left with just the crust in your hand there is no taste to look forward to. I think we might try butter in the dough in place of EVOO along with some other seasonings and see how that turns out...

Yakfish;You might want to check the salt level in your dough since salt is a major flavor contributor to the finished crust. We normally look for the salt level to be a minimum of 1.5% of the total flour weight. I personally like to use 1.75 or 2%. Fermentation is also responsible for a good chunk of the finished crust flavor too. Can you share with us how you are managing your dough? By this I mean, what you do with the dough from the time it is mixed until you actually use it. Substitution of the olive oil with butter will add a dairy note to the finished crust. Some other options are to brush the finished crust with olive oil or butter to impart some additional flavor.Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

Yakfish;You might want to check the salt level in your dough since salt is a major flavor contributor to the finished crust. We normally look for the salt level to be a minimum of 1.5% of the total flour weight. I personally like to use 1.75 or 2%. Fermentation is also responsible for a good chunk of the finished crust flavor too. Can you share with us how you are managing your dough? By this I mean, what you do with the dough from the time it is mixed until you actually use it. Substitution of the olive oil with butter will add a dairy note to the finished crust. Some other options are to brush the finished crust with olive oil or butter to impart some additional flavor.Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

The recipe we are using calls for 780 total grams of flour and 25 grams of salt.

Yakfish;Never mind the salt, you're at 3.2% already. I would think the crust might be tasting slightly salty.Is there a possibility that all that salt is inhibiting fermentation to the point of impacting flavor?Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

Yakfish;Never mind the salt, you're at 3.2% already. I would think the crust might be tasting slightly salty.Is there a possibility that all that salt is inhibiting fermentation to the point of impacting flavor?Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

I don't know enough about the subject to be able to say one way or the other.

We just tried a new batch of dough that turned out much better. I re-read the recipe we put together and the 3.2% is what we were going to try with the new batch, not what we used previously. Previously we were only half that, so 1.6% salt. this batch tastes much better. In addition to increasing the salt we substituted the oil for butter. pretty happy with the result so far! The next batch we will use garlic salt instead of just plain salt and see what happens.

As a pizza professional, I suspect that c0mpl3x was being facetious or speaking with tongue in cheek. There are now quite a few pizzerias that offer flavored crusts, including Hungry Howie's and Jet's, to name a couple. Maybe those flavored crusts are uninspiring, although Hungry Howie's seems to the leader of the pack on flavored crusts: http://www.hungryhowies.com/.

Peter

pete, I was referring to what Dr. Dough answered after you replied to this. seasonings are irrelevant if there isn't salt to make the 'taste', if you follow.